Starting Over
by i'm a faller
Summary: As Newt slips into insanity in his corner of the bowling alley, he wishes that he was alive before the Flare. What he doesn't know is that sometimes wishes really do come true.
1. Chapter 1

I rocked back and forth in my corner of the old bowling alley.

Why? Why hadn't the shank just killed me? I trusted him and he let me down! Now, thanks to him, I'm going to slowly go insane along with the rest of the loving world.

At least I wasn't past the Gone yet. But that almost made it worse. The human and animalistic sides of me battling for control, both knowing full well who'd win. Yes, it was worse knowing how wrong everything was. Feeling the urge to gnaw people's arms out of their sockets, and craving it more than anything but at the same time being completely revolted at the thought. At myself for even feeling like that.

If I was brave enough, I'd do it myself. But I didn't have a gun nor the guts to. I'd tried it once. I jumped off a wall in the bloody maze. But I chickened out, and attempted to go back after I was already falling. It made for an awkward landing position which ended my career as a Runner, not my life.

I wish I had gone through with it then. So I didn't have to go through this now.

I stopped rocking. I felt a tear leak from my eye. Then another. And another. Until I was full out bloody crying.

But I was fine with it. It wasn't the need to eat children's faces, so I was fine with it.

_What if_, I thought between silent sobs, _I was alive before the Flare?_

I let the thought sink in, and, as I ventured into the beautiful realm of sleep and escape from this hell I was forced to endure, it grew more and more desirable.


	2. Chapter 2

My eyes flickered open.

The first thing I noticed was that I wasn't in the bowling alley. It didn't even look like I was still in the Crank Palace.

A perfectly intact white ceiling was above me, complete with a wooden ceiling fan.

And I was in a bed. Teal sheets were tossed around, looking like a hurricane had hit them. Soon enough I realized that I wasn't wearing a shirt or pants, just a pair of yellow and white striped boxers.

Besides the fact that I was in my undies and not in the bowling alley, there was just something that felt...amiss...about the situation. An odd feeling seeped into my mind and began tugging at its corners.

There was a door on the opposite side of an unbroken, glass window, and it was slightly ajar. The window was actually there, another hint that I wasn't with the Cranks, and the fact that the window wasn't heavy-duty plastic gave a hint that I wasn't with WICKED, but the open door sealed the deal.

Maybe one of the other Cranks had killed me in my sleep. I would've loved to consider that option more, but no one seemed to give me a second glance. Except for when Tommy, Minho, and Jorge came back for me.

Cranks. Tommy, Minho, and Jorge. I didn't feel like I wanted to kill somebody! I didn't feel pure loathing towards the three of them! Either I was dead or cured somehow. I didn't care which. I was just glad I wasn't one of them psycho buggers anymore!

A green digital clock told me that it was 7:29 AM.

Well if it was this early and the door wasn't shut and locked, then I felt like exploring wherever this was. Shuck WICKED. Shuck the Flare. Neither of them seemed to apply, and in my book, that meant it was safe.

I hopped off of the bed and groggily made my way over to the door. I'd been through a rough few weeks, so I was ignoring the probability of it being a trap. Ya know, if WICKED needed another bloody _Control Group_.

I poked my head through the doorway, just to see who or what was out there.

What I saw surprised me. It looked like something that would be in a history book, not found in this post-Flare world.

A white hallway with framed pictures of a smiling family on a grassy field, and what I assumed to be their dog, lined the wall opposite my room. I could hear the gentle thrumming of air pulsating through a vent somewhere down the hall.

Now I was almost certain WICKED wasn't behind this. Sure, they're basically the only ones capable of making such a positive environment, but remember the Glade? That was anything _but_ happy.

There was the soft pattering of footsteps behind me. I quickly spun around, my blonde hair whipping my neck and shoulders, half expecting to see a beetle blade staring at me.

Instead, a young girl stood behind me, who couldn't have been older than five or six. She had short, chocolatey brown hair in messy pigtails with eyes of a similar color. A pale pink collar attached to a nightgown underlined the girl's round face.

"Who the klunk are you?" I muttered, not meaning for her to hear.

"Mommy told me to tell you that you need to get ready for school," she responded, making it unclear if she had caught my remark or not. "So put a shirt on." With that, she scurried back from wherever she came from.

Mommy? School? What? I wanted answers, and was beginning to feel like Tommy sounded on his fateful First Day out of the Box.

A strange mixture of curiosity and confusion coursed through my body as I walked back into the room. I walked. I _walked_! I didn't _limp_, I _walked_! That made the combined emotion even stronger, and added a pinch of joy as well.

Now to find some clothes...


End file.
